Tag Archives: Fear

I am on the cusp of something great. I have been noticing a downward trend in my emotions over the past few months.

This trend is remminscent of how I have felt in my high school years. Back then, however, I could not detect it. I can now and I am taking steps to better myself.

I’ve told a few close friends about this already and I think I’ll keep the specifics to myself as to what I’ll be doing.

Just know, I am determined to defeat my depression, anxiety and paranoia. They have been disruptive lately.

I don’t want anyone to be overly concerned. I have had it worse than this and I persevered each time. I have no doubt that I will again. I will need support during this time, but I really don’t want worry to be a thing for me. I got this!

So I am feeling depressed right now. Instead of dwelling in self hatred; I have decided to try to help others who suffer from depression. To do this I am going to look at my feelings right now. Analysis will come after, alongside some reflection.

To start, my anxiety is also quite high. I would say a 7/10. Why am I anxious? Mainly from thinking about the future, my romantic interests, my grades, and my job. All are pretty big things I imagine. It seems to choke me with anxiety. What I do distract myself is two-fold. I go into my local game store, LGS, and I play games. Such as magic the gathering or DnD. The distraction helps, but is not a cure all for me. I have to figure out ways to curb my anxiety. To do that I need to pinpoint some triggers for myself.

One of my biggest triggers is becoming social. This is not a bad thing, yet it is still a trigger. Anxiety, for me, has always been a way for me to figure out my comfort levels. Nowadays I purposefully put myself in situations that cause me anxiety. I want to know the limit of how much I can take.

It’s not much today, unfortunately. Little things set off my anxiety. The silver lining being that it was just a small amount of anxiety. Management of this level of anxiety comes pretty easy for me. Walking around Lancaster city is a trigger for my anxiety and I have come to be really good at managing this type of anxiety that I get.

Back to the original question though, and I still find myself unable to answer well enough to satisfy myself. Thinking on it, I can say with confidence, that I am unsure of my future. I know I want to finish college and graduate, and I want to get a job. Besides those two goals; I am at a loss of what I want from life.

I want a lot of things for my life to pan out and I am not confident that they ever will. I feel like I have fallen off of any motivation that I might have had to pursue those things either.

The main thing that I find I have been struggling with is my feelings for others. I have them, and they are quite strong, but I am afraid of rejection and I feel like a coward for not outright asking them to go out sometime. I have been burned multiple times, I think, and I don’t like the feeling that I get when I am rejected.

That feeling is an overwhelming anxiety at that moment. That is pretty much it for my romantic centric stuff.

I did okay this semester with my grades. I feel like I need to do much better though. I hold myself to a standard that I am not meeting. It’s weird, I get anxious and depressed about my grades so I try to distract myself from it and I then do bad on my projects. That leads to me doing bad at school. It’s a vicious cycle. I need to figure out a way to regain my motivation.

My depression is the main wall in getting my motivation back. I have spots of high motivation, but they last a couple days at most. Then my depression comes creeping back.

I have anxiety about my job mainly because I missed two days. This was due to a medical issue, but it still caused me a lot of anxiety. I tend to have bouts of imaging the worst possible thing that could happen, happen. I am enjoying my job a lot now though and logically I cannot see anything bad happening.

The way I dealt with this bout of depression, and many others, is attacking it with logic. I have a logic based thought process and using that is great for getting rid of anxiety and depression. I simply tell myself that depression does nothing to positively affect me. It is a negative feeling. Logic dictates that I do not need it. The same for my anxiety.

This is a way that I deal with my anxiety and I know it works for me. I am always looking for other ways to approach my depression, and I would like to see if other ways work well for others. Please comment if there is a technique that you use that really helps you. Thanks for reading.

It seems that I have times when my writing is horrible. Then, on other occassions, my writing is almost flawless.

I am looking mainly at the times that I write. The blog post that I posted earlier this afternoon was written Friday night and scheduled. With that in mind, I am going to do an experiment. To try to find out when my writing is at it’s best and when it’s at it’s worst. My hypothesis is that writing later in the day means it will be a better quality.

So, I am writing this post at 9:52 PM on Saturday night. I am going to schedule for tomorrow at noon tomorrow.

Now, for some updates. I have been having issues as of late. I do not want to go into specifics because of the sensitivity of the issue. If you want to know more, I’m sorry, it’s hard to talk about. Even with family, it has been hard to talk about.

Sufficient to say, I am torturing myself over something that I did. The guilt is piling up and grows greater every day. I am going to intensive therapy right now about this and getting the help I need.

If anyone who reads this suffers from autism and is willing to talk to me about a sensitive issue, could you please contact me? I want to talk to someone older than me and more experienced than me. I’m 26 just for reference. I want to get insight from someone on the spectrum.

I feel it’s necessary for me to talk to someone else on the spectrum. Thank you for any help that I might get.

Obi-wan may have been sarcastic in the gif that I used above, but I am doing a good job, yet I have been having doubts as of late about myself and it is affecting my daily life in unproductive ways.

I am always worried that I am failing at something. It does not have to be anything concrete either, it can be something like life.

An example of a thought that I had the other day, “I am failing at life.” I know that this is an absurd statement and I am not failing at life, but I still feel like that sometimes. As of late, I have gotten better at conveying my thoughts and emotions through FaceBook messenger. There are a few people who let me vent to them and help me get through my emotions.

One of those people I developed feelings for and I convinced myself that I had these feelings for a long time. Even though they manifested due to an issue that I was having with someone else that we both knew. I made a fool of myself and I felt I was close to losing a dear friend of mine due to things that I said.

That is another thing that I perceive that I am failing at. That being relationships. Up until now, I have been terrified of being in meaningful relationships and I never truly pursued one, save the one from this past summer that I messed up. The past couple of weeks I have asked two people out. I was turned down by both and I think that caused a catalyst for me. I started behaving differently and I said things that I regret now.

The first girl I asked out was okay with me after the fact and I still would like to believe that we are friends, but there is a voice in the back of my head that says that I messed up any chance I might have had. Just at being friends, not in a romantic sense, and I let that voice’s power grow. That led to the situation with the second girl I asked out. She was kind enough to let me down easy and I appreciated that, but I developed this perverse thought that I could talk to her about anything. No boundaries and I said things and sent her things that I greatly regret. That voice telling me I was failing was in loudspeaker mode at that point.

Then, she forgave me. It was that simple. She forgave me for my stupidity and set boundaries that I would not cross. Even though I feel horrible with how I treated her, I am thankful that the situation happened. It showed me a great many things about myself that I had not realized up until that point.

Those things being that when I become attracted to someone I need to look at my inner self and tell it to slow down and be thoughtful. This is something I was not in the last situation I put myself. The second thing is that I need to really soul search myself. Not just the cursory glance like I usually do, but an in-depth analysis. I have feelings that need to be sorted out. I have habits that need to be broken.

As a result of all of this that has been happening, I have been having nightmares for the past four days. I hope by writing this piece I can stop them. I will let you guys know tomorrow if I have one.

Also, for a fleeting moment, I blamed my autism. It was just a moment, but long enough that I noticed it. I feel half sick that I would blame autism for this. I have beaten autism; at least I thought I had. I refuse to use it as a crutch though. I want to stand on my own and take the responsibility of what I have been doing. A lot of it has been wrong and I am working to fix it.

It’s good that I have recognized that I have a problem that needs to be addressed though and it is something that I can talk to with my support network. It is something that I have to talk with about with my support network. I need to leave the thoughts I have been having behind and start moving forward. There are things I would like to have and I am working on ways to get those things. I got a job, but I am not sure when I start, but I am really excited for that.

Finances have been an issue for me as of late too. I am on disability and I am having a hard time making ends meet, hence the job. I am just worried about how much I am allowed to make versus my disability income. It seems to be a fine line; one that I need to explore. I also need to cut expenses. I make it sound easy, but it will require me to get rid of things that I love. Such as my magic cards. They hold value and I have need of value, so I will have to start selling some of the more expensive ones. I also need to start budgeting a lot better. I used to just spend money and hope that my parents could bail me out, but that is something that I need to stop doing. I am living in a house separate from them and there is no need for them to have to worry about my finances.

To go back to the title of the post, “Why am I so worried?” I think I have the answer to that question. I am an adult and I have to be responsible to take care of everything on my plate, and if I cannot start taking things off of the plate. Start dedicating more time to productive activities and do things to help me further my goals. It’s going to be a hard adjustment for me, but I know I can do it.

Had an unusual thing happen today. I had a panic attack. Now, some of you are confused, but let me explain.

I had a panic attack and it did not matter. Calling it a panic attack is an overstatement in every sense of the word. It was an anxiety spike.

What did I do to said spike? I broke it. I silenced it. It is properly dead and buried. I’m laying down for the night and I’m listening to Dio’s Rainbow in the dark. I have to agree with the song. My demons are gone. They do not trouble me anymore.

Now, my rant.

I thought after what happened in Florida, I would be a wreck, but I’m not. Not trying to lessen what happened in Florida, but I feel good about this reaction.

Simply put, I was a person, in my teen’s, that was sympathic towards the shooter. I am in no way shape or form like that now, but my teen’s were a dark time for me.

I condemn what happend, but I am also realistic that nothing more can be done by me. I registered to vote for my new address and I am, unfortunately, resigned to the fact that it will happen again. I hate that more will die.

After inaction after Sandy Hook though, nothing will change. Nothing.

I hate politics, but I have decided to become a lot more active politically. I want to see the change that my generation can bring in.

It is not just a gun issue, same for mental health. It’s a moral issue. (I have to credit a writer for the Snapper for letting me edit an article of his for this perspective.)

America is sick and it needs to change. Not just one law banning bump stocks or something of that nature. We need reform. We need to take our country back. We need to break the stigma that our generation, the millennials, are useless, entitled, crybabie. Dammit, 17 people are dead. They are not coming back and that pisses me off.

Nazis, white supremacists, alt-right, and many other fringe groups have a choke hold on our country and I’m sick of it. I hate that a massacre had to happen to wake me up and get me angry.

I swear, things will change in this country. It’s about survival now and we need to get our heads back in the game. Stop being entitled. Stop acting like your better for whatever stupid reason you have. White people are not the best, neither are blacks, Latinos, Asian, gay, bisexual, what have you. We are all human and we need to come together and not hate each other.

There are quite a few symptoms that go with being autistic. Such as having a obsession or sticking to a routine that you cannot break. Such as my undying love for Star Wars. If you would like to know a little bit more about the symptoms, I did another blog post for my internship that goes over it at length. Here is the link. I am not talking about those symptoms today though. I am talking about the good things that we are able to do while being autistic.

Autism pushes us to become better

As a member of the autism community I have learned quite a bit. I have met some amazing people who are also on the spectrum. Noting and reading all these success stories makes me happy. Once someone on the spectrum breaks free of the social anxiety confines, we are able to do so much more.

Take what I did last April during the Spring 2017 session. I got the school to light it up blue for autism awareness. It took a lot of courage on my part to even want to talk to the people who could help me. I had a lot of help as well. Members of the school participated in helping me. It is great knowing that there is a road towards acceptance and understanding that the world is traveling.

Another great thing that happened is that there is a website called Asperger’s Experts. It was created by people with autism to help others with autism. The website goes about treatment for autism in a social model rather than a medical model. What they say makes a lot of sense to me and I encourage all you on the spectrum to check them out.

Life without autism

I know that my life would be different at this point if I did not have autism. I would have graduated by now and I would also have a full time job. I could drive without any fear and I could do what I wanted to, when I wanted to. Am I upset that I have autism? No. It is a lot more complex than that though.

I am glad that I have been able to cope with having autism. It is good that I can label it and learn stuff about autism. A bad thing though, is that I had to deal with being autistic my whole life.

Wait, you like having autism!?

I get asked that sometimes and my answer always remains the same. It is better than being dead. I can deal with autism, I cannot deal with death. Autism is not the worst thing that can happen to you. That being said, I hate having autism. Although I am not upset about having it, I still hate the fact that I have it. The hand I was dealt has been tough, do not doubt that, but at the same time, I have dealt with having autism. Like I said above, I have done some amazing things for advocacy this past semester at school.

Advocacy? How can you do that? Simple, I broke free

With my advocacy projects, I am always trying to improve myself. The only way I can do that is by divulging that I have autism. It is not something to be ashamed of. People who have autism are born that way. There is nothing a person can do to stop autism. I believe that to my core. What a person can do is learn how to cope with being autistic. It is hard, but I believe in you. For those who do not have autism, but are related or a friend of someone who does, read these next words and take them to heart. You can help a lot, and you are one of the reasons that your relative or friend have been able to break out of their shells.

When I broke free of my social anxiety shell it was because of friends and family. Also a general curiosity from others wanting to know more about me. I never talked in high school but a few times. This garnered interest in the big guy, that being me, and people wanted to know what I was about. I felt the curiosity a lot. When I broke out of the shell, the world was a different place for me. I was still shy and scared to talk most of the time, but I made some great friends in my senior year of high school that I am still good friends with today.

Some final thoughts

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who read this. It means a lot to me. It makes me feel worthwhile and that I matter. My thoughts count for a lot when it comes to autism. I think that with some more help I will be able to do more with advocacy and bring acceptance worldwide for autism. Autism is not a disorder, it is merely an obstacle and one I plan on taking down. Again, thanks for reading and I will catch you guys another time.

I start a new chapter in my life today! (Sorry for using a far overused cliche) I am starting at Mental Health of America today for an internship. I am not doing it for credit, but for the experience I hope to obtain on the mental health field. That is what I want to do with my life. I want to help those going through what I have went through or are currently going through.

I believe that no one is perfect and I wish to help everyone that I come into contact to in some way. This internship is a way for me to better myself.

Last summer, I was miserable because I had nothing to do and I was subjected to the summer blues. I don’t want this summer to be like that. That is why I am taking the internship. I also plan on getting out of the house every day so that I am not lonely. Which was another problem that I had last summer. Being in a more populated area probably is better for me. I know that sounds odd with me being autistic, but in a odd way, being around people helps me more than not being around people.

There will be challenges in this internship for me, I have no doubt. I also believe that the benefit I will be getting far exceeds any troubles that I might face. I have been having a hard time of it lately and I hope to power through all of that and work hard starting today!

This is my account of life as a family with my wonderful little boy Lachlan who has Autism, it is a true account of the highs and lows, the battles to be heard, understood, the emotions, the impact on my older children and wider family. What worked for us and moving forward.

I want to give voice to that which inspires me ,challenges me;that which brings the good ,the bad & the ugly out in me! I want to share my thoughts on everyday life moments -on mental health -on food & photography...There will be sharing of Memories & Stuff that have touched my soul & sparked my mind !!!